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Political Chat: 'I Told You So' On The Mind Of Oregon Lawmaker?

One of Oregon’s most prominent lawmakers could be forgiven for hearing one of the week’s big stories, and thinking, “I told you so.”

Sen. Ron Wyden has been a longtime critic of the government’s surveillance program known as the Patriot Act.

When it was revealed by the Guardian newspaper this week that the National Security Agency has been collecting phone data of Verizon customers, many were reminded of Wyden’s comments in 2011, when he said, ” … the American people will be extremely surprised when they learn how the Patriot Act is secretly being interpreted.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers and the Governors of both Oregon and Washington are trying to negotiate budgets for the next two years, and it’s coming down to the wire.

And in Portland, city commissioners learned what kinds of challenges — or perhaps headaches — they’ll have, as they are assigned bureaus to run.

Fridays we talk politics, and the political guys are here. Bill Lunch is OPB’s Political Analyst. Jeff Mapes is the senior political reporter for the Oregonian.